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Russell - What Is An Agnostic
Russell - What Is An Agnostic
Bertrand Russell
What Is an agnostic?
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future
life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at
least impossible at the present time.
As for `sin', he thinks it not a useful notion. He admits, of course, that some kinds of
conduct are desirable and some undesirable, but he holds that the punishment of
undesirable kinds is only to be commended when it is deterrent or reformatory, not when
it is inflicted because it is thought a good thing on its own account that the wicked should
suffer. It was this belief in vindictive punishment that made men accept Hell. This is part
of the harm done by the notion of `sin'.
Since an agnostic does not believe in God, he cannot think that Jesus was God. Most
agnostics admire the life and moral teachings of Jesus as told in the Gospels, but not
necessarily more than those of certain other men. Some would place him on a level with
Buddha, some with Socrates and some with Abraham Lincoln. Nor do they think that
what He said is not open to question, since they do not accept any authority as absolute.
They regard the Virgin Birth as a doctrine taken over from pagan mythology, where such
births were not uncommon. (Zoroaster was said to have been born of a virgin; Ishtar, the
Babylonian goddess, is called the Holy Virgin.) They cannot give credence to it, or to the
doctrine of the Trinity, since neither is possible without belief in God.
This question has no precise meaning unless we are given a definition of the word "soul."
I suppose what is meant is, roughly, something nonmaterial which persists throughout a
person's life and even, for those who believe in immortality, throughout all future time. If
this is what is meant, an agnostic is not likely to believe that man has a soul. But I must
hasten to add that this does not mean that an agnostic must be a materialist. Many
agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but
this is a long story taking one into difficult metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should
say, are only convenient symbols in discourse, not actually existing things.
starry heavens. But one should remember that stars every now and again explode and
reduce everything in their neighborhood to a vague mist. Beauty, in any case, is
subjective and exists only in the eye of the beholder.
cannot, of course, be certain of achieving the results at which they aim; but you would
think ill of a soldier who refused to fight unless victory was certain. The person who
needs religion to bolster up his own purposes is a timorous person, and I cannot think as
well of him as of the man who takes his chances, while admitting that defeat is not
impossible.